Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 January 21

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From today's featured article

Saguaro National Park is a United States national park in southeastern Arizona that preserves Sonoran Desert landscapes, fauna, and flora, including the giant saguaro cactus. The 92,000-acre (37,000 ha) park has two separate areas—the Tucson Mountain District (TMD) about 10 miles (16 km) west of the city of Tucson and the Rincon Mountain District about 10 miles (16 km) east of the city. The Rincon Mountains are part of the Madrean Sky Islands between the southern Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico; they are significantly higher and wetter than the Tucson Mountains, and support many plants and animals that do not live in the TMD. Earlier residents of and visitors to the lands in and around the park before its creation included the Hohokam, Sobaipuri, Tohono O'odham, and Apaches, as well as Spanish explorers, missionaries, miners, homesteaders, and ranchers. In 1933, President Herbert Hoover, using the Antiquities Act, established the original park, Saguaro National Monument, in the Rincon Mountains. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy added the TMD. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Roll's Regiment on campaign in Egypt

... that Swiss-born Louis de Roll was colonel of Roll's Regiment (pictured), which distinguished itself at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801?
... that the purple scale predator is native to Australia but was first described from a Californian specimen?
... that Mhaimbhat is considered the first known prose writer in the Marathi language?
... that Metropolis Software's Tajemnica Statuetki (The Mystery of the Statuette) was the first Polish adventure game?
... that when cardiac surgeon Horace Smithy had a patient die on the operating table, he may have lost the chance to undergo heart surgery himself?
... that Friedrich Spee wrote the lyrics of the Christmas carol "Zu Bethlehem geboren" to a popular French tune with a frivolous text?
... that the Georgian goddess Dali appeared as both a nude golden-haired woman with glowing skin, and as a white ibex with golden horns?
... that in an attack on Cologne on 28 May 1944, German gunners thought that crashing GB-1 glide bombs were aircraft they were shooting down?

In the news

Mudflow damage in Santa Barbara County

Turkey begins a military offensive against US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria.
A bus fire in the Aktobe Region, Kazakhstan, kills 52 people.
The British construction and services company Carillion goes into compulsory liquidation.
The oil tanker MV Sanchi sinks with the loss of all 32 crew eight days after colliding with another ship.
At least 18 people are killed after mudflows (damage pictured) strike the area of Montecito, California, in the area affected by the recent Thomas Fire.

On this day...

January 21: World Religion Day (2018)

U.S. Army soldiers moving towards Khe Sanh Combat Base

763 – The Abbasid Caliphate crushed the Alid revolt when one of the rebel leaders was mortally wounded in battle near Basra in what is now Iraq.
1789 – The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered to be the first American novel, was published.
1941 – Sparked by the murder of a German officer the previous day in Bucharest, Romania, members of the Iron Guard engaged in a rebellion and pogrom, killing 125 Jews.
1968 – Vietnam War: The Vietnamese People's Army attacked Khe Sanh Combat Base, a U.S. Marines outpost in Quảng Trị Province, South Vietnam, starting the Battle of Khe Sanh (U.S. Army soldiers pictured).
2011 – Demonstrations in Tirana to protest the alleged corruption of the Albanian government led to the killings of three demonstrators by the Republican Guard.

Yemelyan Pugachev (d. 1775) · John C. Frémont (b. 1813) · Freda Utley (d. 1978)

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Today's featured picture

The Cirque de Gavarnie is a cirque in the central Pyrenees, in south-western France. It was described by Victor Hugo as "the Colosseum of nature" due to its enormous size, and its horseshoe shape resembling that of an amphitheatre. Formed by repeated cycles of glacial scraping over millions of years, the cirque is surrounded by rock walls that can be as high as 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) above its floor. Major features of the cirque are La Brèche de Roland and Gavarnie Falls.

Photograph: Benh Lieu Song

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